


Dancing with a Stranger

by smoothsailing



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mild Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 19:13:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17813873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smoothsailing/pseuds/smoothsailing
Summary: But it was the other guy that Roger couldn’t take his eyes from, not even while he helped the others, mixed their smoothies and plated their sandwiches. Maybe because he stood out against the others: slightly shorter and less tanned, with a bit of a stubble. Maybe because he was the only one that took his sunglasses off.The guy was not the most attractive man Roger has ever seen or flirted or even slept with...but there was something about him, that he couldn’t put his finger on but made his stomach tingle as he watched him staring at the display of sandwiches and wraps in Roger’s counter.





	Dancing with a Stranger

**Author's Note:**

> This is fiction, never happened, never will happen.  
> Story is set in an alternate universe, in Ko Tao, one of the stunning islands in Thailand.  
> Again, I'm incapable of writing Rafa with a broken English so please pretend he's fluent (and still has a head full of hair)

Roger could immediately see that the three guys entering his little shop were Spanish, even before one of them opened his mouth. They could also be Italians, but there was something distinguishably Spanish in the way they were dressed and looked around the small room with his wooden counter, the colourful collection of old stools and the crates with various fruits and vegetables hanging on the wall.

They all wore ridiculous floral shirts and shorts, flip flops and none of them bothered to take off the sunglasses.

It was a little guessing game he used to play with Mirka when they worked together on the weekends.

Today was a Tuesday and he was alone, but he still mentally added a point on their invisible scoring list, when one of them greeted him in a noticeable Spanish accent when he stepped closer to read the chalkboard behind Roger.

He was tall, dark and handsome, just like one of the others. Both with soft looking luscious hair, wide shoulders and strong legs. Both objectively more attractive than the last guy.

But it was the other guy that Roger couldn’t take his eyes from, not even while he helped the others, mixed their smoothies and plated their sandwiches. Maybe because he stood out against the others: slightly shorter and less tanned, with a bit of a stubble. Maybe because he was the only one that took his sunglasses off.

The guy was not the most attractive man Roger has ever seen or flirted or even slept with...but there was something about him, that he couldn’t put his finger on but made his stomach tingle as he watched him staring at the display of sandwiches and wraps in Roger’s counter.

Everything about him seemed so contradictory.

How his lashes would flutter whenever he raised his eyes to meet Roger’s, while he displayed a cocky grin, that made his dimples pop. It looked teasing and awkward at the same time, confident and insecure as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other–every few seconds checking if Roger still watched him.

Stubble’s hands were always moving. Either fiddling with the sunglasses or rubbing over his neck and arms, that were very well defined, just like his cheekbones. But the most captivating thing about him were his eyes: light brown, and oh, so dreamy. And his mouth: chapped and bruised but still so damn soft that Roger wanted to bite and lick them just like Stubble always did.

Roger had to pull himself together.

“Have you decided?”

Again, the lashes, too dark, too long. Fascinating.

“Not yet, everything looks so delicious.”

Again, the smile; dimpled perfection that made something in Roger’s stomach curl.

“I want to try everything.” This time he met Roger’s gaze, didn’t avert his eyes. Those eyes that were so damn dreamy. This time he licked his bottom lip, as if... as if Roger was the most delicious thing in the whole store. And he didn’t even have the decency to blush while he plucked Roger’s heart right out of his chest.

“You...can. You can try  _everything_  you see and like.”

“Everything? Really?” Stubble lifted his eyebrows, grinned.

It was actually Roger that blushed, who stumbled over his words, who felt awkward when the brown eyes wandered all over his body; down and upwards again until they met his own. But it didn’t stop him from leaning over the counter, gesturing to Stubble to step closer so that he could whisper in his ear.

“Everything.” He confirmed.

“Sounds good.” Again, the tongue, this time biting down on that bottom lip, that looked already red and so plush that Roger wondered how often he did that, and what sounds he would make if Roger would do it.

“But since I obviously can’t have everything right now, I want to try your favorites. I trust you.”

“Good choice.” Roger nodded, whispered it in Stubble’s ear. He thought about tasting it, tracing it with his tongue, licking over it and then draw a path towards the cheekbones, kissing the upturned nose and finishing with that damn fuckable mouth, that would taste of mango and pineapple after he drank Roger’s favorite smoothie.

His whole body tingled while he prepared the drink, cut the vegetables for his special summer roll. Feeling the brown eyes watching his hands,  _watching him_  was thrilling and his skin burned as he handed over the plate with a smirk.

“200 baht, please.”

“I thought it was on the house.” Stubble actually managed to pout.

“It’s only on the house if I get something in return. I’m running a business here.”

Stubble gave him some bills, but didn’t stop pouting until he spotted the phone number Roger had written down on his napkin.

The blinding smile was worth way more than two hundred bath.

__

_You said I could try everything?_

_Yeah._

_Because I want to. Try everything._

_I close at 8._

__

It had been a slow day, one of those that Roger normally would have used to go through his storage room and make order lists, wipe out the fridges or try new recipes. On that day he was too restless, almost nervous–something he didn’t know from himself because there was nothing to be excited about: just a hookup, a one-night stand with an American tourist he would never see again after he’d left the island.

And Stubble would leave. Ko Tao was too small and too quiet: lesser clubs, lesser parties than the other neighboring islands. One of the reasons Roger chose it.

But that afternoon he found himself staring at his phone or checking for new messages whenever he had some spare minutes. Thinking about the guy’s dimples, his upturned nose and the unruly strands of hair that he had constantly tried to tuck behind his ear without much success.

Maybe it had been too long since the last time Roger had sex. Maybe it had been too long that he met someone that intriguing and teasing.

Stubble never answered to Roger’s last message, never told him if he’d be there.

But he was.

When Roger stepped outside to stack up the chairs, close the umbrellas and clean up the deck he spotted him: sitting on the small wall there, bare feet dangling into the sand, eyes closed, basking in the evening sun, that turned his skin golden.

The relief that he suddenly felt almost startled him.

When Roger finished wiping down the counter a last time and started to switch off the fan and the lights, he watched him: the little smile, the hand brushing through the sweaty curls.

The thrill that accelerated his heart almost frightened him.

When Roger grabbed the bag with the leftovers that he usually gave to the old homeless man that sat at the street corner and locked the turquoise door of the shop, two hands reached around him and covered his eyes. Warm and strong. And then a scent of sunscreen, salt and summer engulfed him and Roger could feel his knees trembling while Stubble pressed himself against his back. Kissed his neck, licked over his throat, nicked his earlobe.

“I can’t wait to try everything.”

He was hard. And Roger couldn't wait to get him home and into his bed.

__

That was almost four weeks ago. Now, Rafa is living in his house, moved in three days after they barely made it to Roger’s place dressed, stumbled through the door and fucked on the rackety kitchen table like teenagers. Fucked on the old rug in front of the couch. Fucked in the tiny shower, bodies twisted awkwardly because the water boiler was pressing into his shoulder.

After Roger came over Rafa’s face, over his belly and his back.

Now Rafa is sleeping next to him, dressed in Roger’s old shirt and his boxers because they have been too lazy and too busy to do laundry.

Now Rafa is living in Roger’s apartment, buying groceries, cooking him dinner and picking up the dirty clothes that he’s always scattering everywhere.

Now Rafa is in Roger’s life. And it’s strange.

Because he doesn’t  _mind_  it. Because he  _likes_  it even.

The warmth of the body beside him when he wakes up in the morning, the sound of clumsy feet padding into the kitchen, off to make coffee. The additional clothes in his closet, getting mixed up with his own, Rafa’s scent still clinging to the ones he borrowed, that Roger can smell Rafa on him as he works around in his shop. The soft tunes of a radio playing when he gets home in the evening, sometimes finding Rafa leaning against the kitchen counter, book in his hands, lazily stirring the simple pasta dish while his lips hum to the music; sometimes looking for Rafa until he finds him on the porch, dozing in the hammock, mango-pineapple smoothie next to him, eyelids heavy while he gazes up at Roger, waiting for his kiss. Sometimes they go out to the clubs, or to the beach where they swim naked in the lukewarm water, their laughter mixing with the calming sounds of the lapping waves. Sometimes they stay in, lying in the darkness and talking for hours about studying, working, traveling. About their past, their present and everything in between. The reasons why Roger dropped out of school and fled his hometown and the narrow-minded people living in it. Rafa’s fascination with golf.

They talk about their dreams, the ones they used to have, the ones they lost, the ones they can still make true.

There are books everywhere now: on the kitchen table, on the chair serving as his nightstand, on the shelf in the bathroom, on the railing of the porch. There are curly brown hairs in the sink, minty toothpaste on the shelf and sand on the tiles dragged in from the beach.

His apartment is no longer his apartment. It’s Rafa’s and his apartment. It’s  _home_. In a way it has never been before. And Roger loves it.

__

Roger usually doesn’t do relationships.

They are complicated. They are stressful. They are constricting.

He gave up on them after his last breakup, when he packed what little stuff he possessed into three storage boxes and a backpack, before he fled the narrow-minded town that had been his home for so much longer than he wanted.

He never looked back once. Not as he left his parents’ house, not as the train pulled from the station. Not as the plane lifted from the ground to bring him to Asia where he spent the next three years traveling India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Indonesia, working in coffee shops, restaurants or hotels, as a tennis instructor before he had saved enough money to open his own shop. He made friends, had coworkers, travel companions, one-night stands and short affairs, but never for as long as to call it relationship, always moved on before it could become one.

It was easy. It was fun. It was freedom.

It was lonely.  ~~He was lonely~~.

Something he only realized now, as he watches Rafa’s sleeping body next to him. Skin shining in the moonlight, face turned towards him, relaxed and soft, mouth slightly parted, lashes stunningly long and dark. Hair washed out from the sun and the sea; messier and darker than two weeks ago, when he stepped into Roger’s little fruit and juice bar for the first time.

He radiates an aura of calmness and trust that Roger can’t help but be drawn to. A purity that is enchanting and magical.

Roger never had anything like this, and he wants to drown in it. In Rafa.

__

He used to  _like_  lonely.

He used to like the silence in his apartment, the coolness of the sheets in his bed, the freedom of doing whenever whatever he liked.

But now it scares him.

The idea of coming home to the once so familiar quietness. Of not stumbling over flip flops. Of falling asleep without the warm body next to him.

And this scares him even more.

__

“Feli and Nando are coming back from Koh Pha-ngan tomorrow.” Rafa says.

It’s the first thing he says after they finished dinner and Roger’s heart stutters. They haven’t talked about this. They haven’t talked about anything. But now he wants to. And doesn’t want to. Doesn’t know what he wants.

So he stays silent. Waits.

“They want to stay for one night at the hostel and then move on like we planned.”

Before Rafa changed his plans and decided to stay with Roger while the others went to the full moon party on Koh Phangan, to visit the other islands.

“Manila, Palawan, home.”

 _Home_.

A word that has lost all meaning to Roger. Until two weeks ago.

‘ _You have a home. This is home. You are home_.’ He wants to say. But the words don’t come out. He only nods. What can he say, honestly?

“Okay?”

“Okay.” Rafa looks at him, fork scratching over porcelain; a sound that makes Roger shiver, although not as much as the emotions and the hurt in those brown eyes. A gaze that runs through his body like lightning, that startles him so much he almost jumps to his feet, stumbles over to the sink. Everything is spinning around him, the colours have shifted and he feels like he has to throw up.

 _Not okay_.

He doesn’t throw up.

But maybe that’s only because there is suddenly a cool and calming hand on his neck, and another combing through his hair. Lips that whisper into his ear, before pressing tiny kisses to his cheeks and temporals, on his throat and shoulder blades.

“Are you okay?”

No. He  _isn’t_.

“Yeah, yeah, of course.” Of course, why wouldn’t he be?

“Let me do the dishes later, let’s go outside.”

Rafa’s voice is gentle, patient. His movements even more so, as he leads Roger to the porch, pushes him into the hammock. Yet he’s gone before Roger can grasp him, can keep him close or pull him down beside Roger.

When he returns, he has two glasses of water in his hands – not the pineapple smoothie, or whatever Rafa usually prefers. It’s cool and fresh and purifying in a way that allows Roger to breathe more freely, to reach out for him, to pull him down and against his body.

It is too hot to have someone close, skin to skin. Too sticky to have someone pressed against him. But the pressure on his chest is too much, too painful to let Rafa go, to not feel him, or have him.

Roger can see that his behaviour worries Rafa, that his grip is too tight and his kisses too hard, when they tumble from the hammock onto the wooden porch and he plasters his body all over Rafa’s, not even trying to keep his full weight from pressing down on him. He can see Rafa’s eyes widen, the shock and the pain when he hits the floor. But Roger doesn’t give him any time to adjust, or prepare, he yanks at the shorts, pulls them down and over Rafa’s legs before he folds them open and reveals Rafa’s sweet, sweet hole.

“Roger, we’re–”

He shakes his head. Doesn’t care. Doesn’t care at all, when Rafa blinks up at him and then closes his eyes as if …  as if he’s okay with whatever Roger wants from him today. As if he’s okay with Roger taking whatever he needs.

They fuck on the porch, only separated from the beach with the wooden railing. It’s nighttime, but it’s also Koh Tao; there are people out at the beach all the time.

Roger doesn’t care, doesn’t even think about caring when Rafa gives him that precious gift.

It’s the first time they fuck without lube, without a condom - there is no time, he can’t let him go; not even for one second – and even though he licks Rafa thoroughly, caresses and fingers him for minutes and hours until he’s sobbing from pleasure, he still stiffens and holds his breath, his fingers clawing into Roger’s arms painfully, before he finally opens his legs wider and allows Roger to drive in.

It’s good. It’s better than good. It’s perfect.

Because Rafa is perfect. So trusting, so open, so vulnerable underneath him, around him. The way he moans and sighs Roger’s name is poetry. The way he folds his legs around Roger to pull him closer is mind blowing. The way he fucks himself on Roger’s cock, gives everything, is heaven.

Roger wants to do this for the rest of his life. Needs this. Like air. His whole body feels on fire with this intense need that doesn’t vanish after he’s come inside Rafa and tastes every inch of Rafa’s skin, licks every drop of Rafa’s cum from his stomach and bites soft red marks into Rafa’s chest. Bites down softly, then a bit harder and harder until Rafa flinches underneath, until Roger sees tears gathering in the corners of Rafa’s eyes, his teeth sunk deeply into his wonderful lower lip to prevent himself from making a sound.

With a bang of shame, he stops. He never wanted to hurt Rafa. He just...couldn’t help himself. Felt as if he had no control; over himself, and over this crazy fiery want inside him.

And he has never wanted anyone or anything else that much in his whole life, outside of escaping his little hometown and being free.

Later, when they have caught their breath, Roger helps him up, brushes the beginning of tears away with his thumbs, kisses the soft lips, feels them warm under his tongue. He wants to apologize, wants Rafa to understand that he regrets the way he hurt him, to make it better. But when he opens his mouth, Rafa shakes his head and stops him with a smile: soothing and calming and so very sweet. Then he leans against Roger for a few seconds, chest against chest, heartbeats almost in sync--before he drags Roger back into the bedroom, sweatier and needier than ever before.

Letting Rafa part from him is not an option, so Roger drapes Rafa’s pliant and exhausted body over his own, curls his arms around Rafa’s back, folds his legs over Rafa’s calves, buries his face in Rafa’s neck, his nose in the curly hair. Lets himself be pressed into the mattress, secured and anchored by the comforting weight over him.

Rafa is everywhere. In his house, on his clothes. On his skin. In his arms. In his mouth. In his memories. That should not even be memories because this is not over yet.  _They_  are not over yet.

__

Except they are.

Because when he comes home the following evening, Rafa is gone.

So completely that it’s like he’s never even been here. Like Roger’s mind made him up.

There is no smell of pasta or paella when he gets home, no flip flops on the foot mat, no books scattered on the kitchen table. There are no bare feet on the kitchen tiles, no curly hair in the bathroom sink, no Spanish dance music blaring from weak iPhone speakers. There is no warm fleeting kiss, no honey sweet dimpled smile, no pliant body that he can pull against him at night.

Roger doesn’t sleep in his bed this night. Can’t sleep in the sheets that still hold the scent of saltwater and soap and pineapples, that conjures images of brown, dreamy eyes, lightly tanned skin and faded curls. Can’t stand that amount of space and freedom he suddenly has, when he turns over. The coldness that spreads in his veins and can’t be cured by the blanket that he pulls over him.

So he sits on the porch; not in the hammock, because this is another one of Rafa’s favorite places in his apartment. He sits on the steps and drinks.

Thinks that he should be glad that Rafa left, that they had no future anyway, because Roger doesn’t do relationships. That Roger adores his freedom and prefers it over any relationship he ever had. Remembers that Rafa left without a word of goodbye and gratefulness, as if they didn’t share his apartment in the last two weeks, didn’t have a good thing together.

Focuses on that anger, because focusing on the disappointment and the hurt makes him want to curl up into a small ball, makes his stomach convulse and his chest so tight that he has trouble breathing.  
__

Picking up his previous rhythm is easy. Roger gets up in the morning, works out and fixes his coffee in the silence of his apartment. He works in his shop without looking up at every customer that enters (without hoping to see silly Hawaiian shirts or brown curls) until he can close up and go back home that is not his home anymore. Then he sits in the darkness of his porch, watches the couples that walk by, wonders if they have come together, if they have just met here, if they are happy or about to break up soon.

He starts reading again to busy his mind, to fill his time, to distract his heart from feeling empty and lonely.

He used to  _like_  lonely.

He used to be scared of the idea of sharing his life.

Now he’s scared about not sharing his life.

__

Sometimes he gets his cellphone out, opens the contacts, fingers flipping through the names until they hover above Rafa’s name, making them tremble, and he has to put the phone away before he presses the call button. It’s useless.

One time he does it. Presses down, but ends the call without a connection. It’s pointless.

He deletes the contact after this.

Sometimes he scrolls through their messages, at the silly things Rafa had texted him to make him chuckle at work, the random pictures and observations Rafa sent from his walks to the grocery store, all the little fragments of his smart and precious mind.

Roger wants to delete them, too. Finger hovering over the button for minutes, heart beating painfully in his throat until he drops the phone and stands up and leaves the house. Runs until he’s covered in sweat, his lungs are bursting, and he can tell himself that the tears are from the exhaustion.

He can’t delete the conversation.

He can’t delete the last proof that Rafa was once real.

__

Sometimes he thinks about what could have been, if he went after Rafa. If he went to the hostel Rafa had stayed in before he moved in with Roger. If Roger searched for him.

 _If he found him. Stopped him from leaving_.

But then he remembers that Rafa disappeared on him. Sneaked out of his apartment and hurt him. That Rafa didn’t want him. Didn’t even want him enough to bother.

__

Sometimes he wakes up from a dream of Rafa still being with him, sleeping right next to him, just far away enough that they don’t touch. A dream that felt so real that he doesn’t dare to open his eyes, too afraid to chase it away, wanting nothing but fall asleep again and have the same dream over and over.

And, when that’s impossible, then Roger lies there, pretending the reality of his life without Rafa is the nightmare he just escaped and when he’d opened his eyes and reached over, he could see and feel Rafa beside him, warm and calm, and _his_.

__

It’s almost two months later when he finds the letter. Written on the back of a paper full of drawings and sketches, hastily scribbled. Folded twice and tucked away in one of Rafa’s books that is lying in the gap between the couch and the wall.

Roger doesn’t know if Rafa put it there for him to find it, or if it was an accident. If the book fell out of Rafa’s backpack and he was never supposed to read these words.

But he finds them, and he reads them and when he’s finished, he reads them again. And again.

In the end he can’t say how many times he’s read the words, enough to know them by heart. But not enough that they lose their impact. That they stop making him feel nauseous and weak and desperate. Not enough to stop him from reading them again.

Not enough to stop his heart from breaking.

It’s long after midnight when he finally gets up from the floor where he’d sunken down to read, cold and shivering, hungry and thirsty for something that no food or water could satisfy. Starving and needy for someone who is probably 10000 miles and 12 hours away.

For someone who has maybe already forgotten or given up on him. Someone who had hurt Roger more than he ever thought was possible and whom he had hurt just as much. Someone he wanted more than anything and anyone ever before, that Roger pushed him away to save his own heart from breaking that he actually broke it in the process.

__

_~~Dear~~ _ _Roger,_

_I’m sorry that I have to leave like this. Believe me, it’s not the way I want to. I’d love to stay until tomorrow and then say goodbye and thank you for letting me stay_ _~~with you~~ _ _. and for being so kind to give me not only a place to sleep but also a home._

 

_~~But I don’t~~ _

_I_ can’t _stay and wait until you get home. Because we would have dinner and then we would have sex and you would hold me and we would fall asleep together. This sounds so boring but it’s actually everything I want. And probably nothing that you want. Which is...okay. We’ve never talked about what we’re doing here, what we are or what we want. You’ve never made any promises that you didn’t keep._

_But you made it so easy to fall in love with you. There’s the way your eyes follow me around the room, attentive and appreciating. There’s the way you smile, fond and filled with affection. And the way you talk to me and touch me... Everything about you is fascinating and every day I’ve spent with you made me fall for you even more._

_That’s the reason why I have to leave right now. I’ve packed up my stuff spread out in your house as if it belongs there. I’m leaving this little space that has become so familiar to me and that I would have never left if it weren’t for you._

_Not that you asked me to leave you._

_But you didn’t ask me to stay. And that was even more painful. That I could see it in your eyes, and yet...you didn’t want me enough to overcome that fear and that pride to ask me. I’m sorry that I can’t stay for another night and let you fuck me like I’m the only thing you want and need._

_So I’m leaving right now. To protect my dignity and my heart._

_Maybe it’s probably too late for that, for both of them._

_Yet, since I never said it before_ _~~and I probably never will~~ _ _; I’ve fallen in love with you and if you’d asked me to stay, I would have. Forever._

_Take care_

__

This time Roger presses the call button after he opened the chat with the nameless phone number.

This time he doesn’t end the call before it connects.

This time he waits until someone picks up and until he can hear the waiting silence and the almost soundless breathing.

Never before was he more nervous. Never before was he more anxious. Not when he shouldered his backpack and heard the soft click of his parents’ front door without leaving any note. Not when he withdrew all the money from his savings account and boarded the plane to the other side of the world where nobody knew him and he didn’t know anybody. Not even when he handed over all the money he had ever earned and got the key for his little shop.

But never before has it been more important. And more worth it.

 


End file.
